RETURN TO ENGLAND, DECEMBER, 1945
SOMEHOW it came without that shock to sense
Pondered and long expected. No white cliffs Shining in watery sunlight. No green fields Startling the eye inured to yellow flats Lapped in stark radiance. We came home in fog.
Southampton had her hair tied in a bun And none too neatly. It was dank and cold.
The Bay had bucketed the ship like hell After a metal-drab, a grey, sad sea From Said to Gib. Perhaps we'd longed too much In Arakan, or on the Indian plain.
Perhaps we'd seen too much, and sated, came To a wet England, hoping, but unmoved. Fog in the train. Fog, and our feet were cold. What anticlimax—and the fog grew worse Until Victoria echoed like a vault Beneath dim, yellow circles of sad light, And midday London welcomed us to night.
But, as we spanned the city to King's Cross, The smell of petrol smote us, and the sound Of horns and engines. Buses loomed, alight
And full of English faces. Shops were gay— Deny it Britain ; they were gay to us—
And traffic lights gayer than Indian sun.
The mood was broken. We were home again.
Come fog, come rain—is it not part of home As much, or more, than white cliffs and green grass? Our hearts surged and we looked, and looked away
Lest we deny the evidence of tears. JOHN WIDDOWS.
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